Freund, Paul Abraham, 1908-1992

Paul Abraham Freund, 1908-1992, was a preeminent legal scholar. Under the guidance of Professor Thomas Reed Powell, Felix Frankfurter and others, Freund became a standout student at Harvard Law School, and was elected as President of the Harvard Law Review from 1930-1931.

After receiving his S.J.D. magna cum laude in 1932, Freund spent a year as clerk to Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis. He remained in Washington for the rest of the decade, working as a government lawyer in the Treasury Department (under Thomas Corcoran and Dean Acheson), Reconstruction Finance Corporation (under Stanley Reed), and finally in the Solicitor Generals Office (again with Stanley Reed, followed by Robert Jackson). In Washington, Freund argued before the United States Supreme Court and wrote briefs for New Deal cases such as gold clause and Tennessee Valley Authority.

Freund returned to Harvard in the fall of 1939 and began an academic career that would take up the rest of his life. (The only interruption was a return to the Department of Justice from 1942-1946.) He became a respected professor at the Law School and, after appointment as Carl M. Loeb University Professor in 1958, at Harvard College as well. Freund created a course for undergraduates, Social Sciences 137: "The Legal Process." It became so popular that he lectured to a packed Sanders Theater. His commitment to his role as teacher and writer was so great that when, in late 1960, a newly-elected John F. Kennedy offered him the Solicitor Generalship, Freund declined, stating his feeling that he could accomplish more for the public good from his post at Harvard.

Besides teaching, Freund’s main academic endeavor for a full 34 years of his life was as Editor of the History of the Supreme Court of the United States. This project was funded by money that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes left to the United States Government after his death, known as the Holmes Devise. Freund oversaw the production of seven volumes but was not able to see the project to its completion.

During his tenure as professor, Freund vowed not to act as attorney on any cases. However, he did lend his expertise as an academic and advisor beyond the confines of Harvard. In the 1950s he aided Thurgood Marshall and the N.A.A.C.P. legal defense team with the school desegregation cases and was one of John F. Kennedy's team of advisors during his 1960 presidential campaign. Freund also took public stances on many contemporary issues including the Equal Rights Amendment, school prayer, presidential disability, and the elimination of the Electoral College.

In the 1970s Freund led a Federal Judicial Center study that produced the Report of the Study Group on the Caseload of the Supreme Court. Also known as the Freund Report, it recommended the formation of a National Court of Appeals to alleviate some of the Supreme Court's caseload. While Congress never enacted Freund’s recommendations, the report sparked a significant national debate that continues to the present day.

As a leading authority on the U.S. Constitution and the Supreme Court, Freund’s name was mentioned several times as a candidate for the Supreme Court. Freund was considered a top candidate for Supreme Court vacancies during both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations but was never nominated.